The Japanese Peace Bell is a bell donated to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City via the United Nations Association of Japan in June 1954. It is a bonsho (a Buddhist temple bell) that is 60 centimeters in diameter, 1 meter in height, and 116 kg (256 lb) in weight. It was established by Chiyoji Nakagawa.

Parts of this article (those related to List of Peace Bell honoree) need to be updated. The reason given is: No updates since 2016. (September 2022)

Ceremonies are held at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in September each year as well as on the International Day of Peace on September 21, when the bell is rung in honor of world peace by the Secretary General, UN executives, and other public figures.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

In 1951, Chiyoji Nakagawa, who was a then-current council member of the UN Association of Japan and later became the mayor of Uwajima City (Ehime prefecture), participated in the 6th General Assembly of the United Nations held in Paris at his own expense as an observer from Uwajima, a city located in the south-west of the Shikoku region. With the aid of Benjamin Cohen, the Secretary General, he appealed to national representatives: “I want to collect coins and medals from people all over the world, going beyond differences in ideas, principles, regions, races, and nationalities, to melt them into one molded piece to cast a bell as a symbol of the wish for peace and present it to the United Nations headquarters. I want the bell to be tolled for peace.”

No objection was raised from the representatives; the proposal was approved unanimously and officially accepted by the UN Economic and Social Council in the following year. They decided to place the bell in the Japanese Garden of the United Nations headquarters as the “Japanese Peace Bell.”

Starting from the coins received from representatives from more than sixty countries that endorsed the purpose and 9 gold coins from Pius XII, the Pope of Rome, Nakagawa spent three years visiting countries over the world to collect the coins and commissioned Tada Foundry in Takamatsu City (Kagawa Prefecture) to found the bell.

The Japanese characters “世界絶対平和萬歳” ((hep: sekai zettai heiwa banzai), lit. “long live absolute world peace”) are inscribed on the bell, and the sun and the moon are surrounded by laurel, depicted at the point hit by the wooden bell hammer. The belfry, built by Rinpei Oshita, a traditional architectural craftsman in Uwajima, was made in the shape of the blossom temple where Buddha was born and transported to New York from Yokohama Port in 1954 by the Tsuneshima-maru, owned by Iino Kaiun Kaisha, as the maiden voyage for the ship. A handful of sand from atom-bombed areas was sent by a chief Zen priest in Hiroshima and a female Christian student in Nagasaki who survived the bombing, to be carried with the bell and buried under the foundation stone for the belfry. The bell and the belfry were installed in the UN headquarters and a presentation ceremony was held on June 8.

Currently, the Japanese Peace Bell is located in the Japanese Garden of the UN headquarters, and is rung twice a year: around Earth Day on March 21, and for the International Day of Peace on September 21. Notably on the International Day of Peace, the UN Secretary General rings the bell to pray for world peace in the presence of the UN executives, other UN members, and celebrities.^[6][7]

It is a bronze Buddhist temple bell of 60 cm in diameter, 1 meter in height, and 116 kg in weight. Chiyoji traveled countries all over the world to collect the coins that were used to make it. He received old and current coins, sable guards, bullets, bronze medals, badges of various denominations, and copper plates from a wide variety of people. These were melted down and used for casting, along with the coins received from the representatives of more than sixty countries who participated in the 6th General Assembly of the United Nations held in Paris and the 9 gold coins given by Pius XII, the Pope of Rome.

Chiyoji commissioned Jonosuke Tada XIV, of the distinguished Tada Foundry, to cast the bell and Rinpei Oshita, a traditional architectural craftsman from Uwajima, to build the belfry.^[8]

After installing the Japanese Peace Bell in the UN headquarters in New York, Chiyoji Nakagawa began a series of activities to promote world peace centered around the bell. At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1961 during the cold war between the US and the Soviet Union, he visited the embassies of both countries and presented replicas of the Japanese Peace Bell, weighing 4 kg each, as sister bells to President Kennedy and Prime Minister Khrushchev via the embassies, with a message: “World peace can be maintained with a little consideration and with smiles.”

When the Expo 1970 was held in Osaka , he sought permission from U Thant, then-current Secretary General of the United Nations, to temporarily bring the Japanese Peace Bell back from the UN headquarters to the Expo site in Osaka to promote the Japanese Peace Bell as people gathered there from all across the world.

He meanwhile cast a similar bell to replace the original, to fill its absence at UN headquarters. The bells were exchanged again after the Expo and the original Japanese Peace Bell was returned to the UN.

The Peace Bell in Expo '70 Commemorative Park is a replacement of the bell used at the UN headquarters. At the same time as the Expo, Chiyoji produced 150 replicas of 1 kg in weight from same coins used for the original Japanese Peace Bell. He visited the embassies of 140 countries with Secretariat-General U Thant and presented them to the heads of states.

(List of bells presented to the countries around the world by Chiyoji Nakagawa)^[8]

The Association for the Preservation of UN Peace Bell (General Incorporated Association) started its activities in 2013 and Nakagawa’s daughter Seiko Takase established the organization as and served as its representative in 2015, 43 years after her father’s death. The association established the organization under the premise that the existence of the Japanese Peace Bell donated to the United Nations and her father’s hope for world peace were not properly conveyed or communicated by the media. The association’s activities and name were approved by the United Nations in the same year.

Seiko Takase, as the association’s representative, participates in the bell ringing ceremony held in the UN headquarters in New York every year.

• Peace symbols (includes a list of symbols)
• United Nations Art Collection